WE ❤️ HOSPITALITY - Regina Borda

The last year has been terrible for the hospitality sector. Most businesses have seen extreme financial challenges and its reputation as an employer has been severely affected. We are now hearing from many, many of our clients about their fears for the future from staff shortages to skills gaps and top mid-senior talent moving to other sectors.

Krishnan Doyle is sharing his conversations with service industry leaders and operators on all that is good about hospitality & catering with the purpose to improve the sector's reputation as one of the largest employer worldwide but also as a great place to develop your career. 

How did you get into hospitality? 

Originally by coincidence. I was working in Marketing for an FMCG company, but I saw a Marketing role at Yum! A very good friend of mine worked there and loved the company, the brands and the culture, so he helped me get an interview. The rest is history – I have been with Yum! for almost 18 years…,

Do you think it is important to have studied hospitality to be a success in the sector?

No. See above. It IS important to be an avid learner, of course, but you can go very far by learning on the job. It’s a sector that lends itself to learning the business from the bottom up

Which leader / figure inspired you and why? 

What I love about our sector is that it is very entrepreneurial. The people who started the brands Yum! owns are very inspiring for that reason. Colonel Sanders, the founder of KFC, failed at many things in life, but never gave up, launched KFC in his sixties and turned it into a massive global brand! It’s never too late to make a success of yourself! On the other end of the spectrum, you have the Carney brothers, who started Pizza Hut when they were at university, with a $300 loan from their mother and with the aim to make pizza, which was an exclusive food in the US in the 50’s, accessible to mainstream consumers. They demonstrated so much courage by taking that leap at such a young age, which I find really inspiring. But the leaders who inspire me the most are leaders that care equally about making a positive impact on their team and on their communities than on the bottom line. Pizza Hut is partnering with Beyond Meat in the UK (currently only available in a few test stores), and I love Ethan Brown’s - the Beyond Meat CEO’s – mission to positively impact four growing global issues by shifting from animal to plant-based meat: human health, climate change, constraints on natural resources, and animal welfare. I can’t wait for that partnership to launch nationally and for Pizza Hut to make it easier for people to make more sustainable choices

What keeps you in the sector and why to you enjoy working in it? 

We deliver our brands and our experience through people, so it is all about inspiring, enabling and empowering the people who work for us - 2) It’s a fabulous industry for people who for whatever reason haven’t been able to follow a “typical” career path. You don’t need a degree – if you are passionate, dedicated and a fast learner, the sky is the limit. I know many people who have started as a delivery driver or a back-of-house team member and now own dozens of franchise restaurants or hold a C-suite position at our company!

Tell us about the development / training that you give to your teams and management 

I could talk about this all day, but a few things to call out. First, our franchise partners at Pizza Hut Restaurants UK offer apprenticeships all the way up to degree level, which I think is quite unique and very cool. Second, beyond the technical stuff about food safety, making product, serving customers, forecasting, labour scheduling, managing a team, managing the P&L etc., we teach several leadership programs. My favourite is called “Leading with Heart”, and it gives our team tools to understand themselves better, understand their reactions to stressful situations and to choose more effective behaviours in dealing with those. 

What advice would you give to those starting out in the sector? 

This business is about people – surround yourself with capable, dedicated people, find the right ways to inspire, enable and empower them, and satisfied customers and profits will follow!

If you could go back and tell yourself one piece of advice as you started your career, what would it be?

Enjoy the journey more! Worry less about your next career move and more about who you can have a positive impact on others! If you do that well, the career moves will take care of themselves

If you would like to take part as a leader in this thriving sector, get in touch with Krishnan (krishnan@corecruitment.com)